ForesTriangulation
p. 4 of 5
56. Thinking Milan. The columns in the interior of El Duomo seemed almost as wide as high, vanishing into the shadows above. Under this canopy, in the vast space punctuated by sooty marble columns, distant figures, walking, would vanish for two or three seconds, with no footfall audible in the bassy, subdued reverberations of encompassing centuries. Columnic shadows, a cathedral grove.
34. Woke early on the first day and ventured out as the others slept. Single track roadway bathed in a fine mist, with sun intermittently breaking through, light rain fog and mist getting the last word.
59. I see myself through my dad’s eyes, still alert in the hospital but evening closing in. Watching the autumn forest colours hidden behind the glare reflected in the generous hospital windows of this shared room. Uncomfortable, restless, I watch through my father’s eyes as I triangulate his thin sheet and wrap his twinned feet hanging bird-like off the end of the adjusted industrial-issue bed. Like a shroud, I realize afterward. On the bus back from Guelph, I offer succor.
26. My kids’, my two daughters’, first camping trip. The four of us discovering Crystal Pickle Island while canoeing that second day.
Not real camping – RVs just beyond the knoll. Our spot a haven for first lessons in pitching tents and guy lines. Gathering kindling, breathing on a spark, coaxing it into flame to boil water.
Relentless rain – deluge-style both nights. After dark, it begins in earnest. The four of us bedded in; flashlights off the glow of the Algonquin pup tent’s blue and red leaving iridescent green and rose aftertrails in my eyelids. The kids’ tent, a shout’s distance away, enveloped by a lights-out plunge into night. The inside of our tent as black as pitch (I check with my hand at varying lengths before my nose: nothing). Awakened by the sudden cessation of sound, a kaleidoscopic dripping. Protective and just edging back into some deep sleep, half-dreams shadowing the nothing (one eye open, though to no effect: I tested one eye against the other, a comparative study of black). Bolt awake – near-human cry, but unearthly. The others impossibly sleep on. My hand that I cannot see sees the sound cascading all around. Gingerly, bare feet on sodden ground, in my underwear, grasping around the ground for sticks or a stone. Crouching and then standing and throwing rocks at the marauding raccoons.
In the morning, when I tell them what they missed, hysterical giggling passes contagiously at the image of me. That day, we paddle and lunch on newly christened Crystal Pickle Island.
Sun breaking through, loading the car, leaving no trace.
59. At Pancake Bay, I set up camp in near-darkness, silhouetted trees above suggest daylight, the day's fourteen-hour drive forgotten. A triumph, although not yet halfway there.
21. Ensconced on the Outward Bound bus from Thunder Bay, snaking north beside glimpses of Black River. I’ve been jogging for weeks. The others appear not to have prepared. They are shocked by their own inexperience and ineptitude with things outdoors; trees are second nature for only a few of our twenty-one. A motley flotilla of seven canoes. An undisciplined armada jostling with untamed nature.
Being with others, some of whom, like the couple from Palace Pier, have never set foot in a canoe before. I discover the marathon of leadership. Not to paddle ahead. Act as a team. The pinnacle, the myth of solo. Alone w rations of two teabags and a meagre plastic ziplock of granola. Telling stories of building squirrel traps to stave off boredom more than starvation. Hunger inhabits the pine island I circumnavigate in the first hours. A howling wind translates tree limbs to phantom transistor radio stations. Daylight fades.
In the morning there is snow.
Pinches of granola dregs for breakfast. The radios’ blare a memory as I await the other canoes, my life jacket obelisk signaling the all-okay. I’m stuck, waiting for rescue. From myself. They take forever to show up. I miss my island.
One guy ate ants.

Later in the week, after our requisite tour of Laphroaig and Bowmore Distilleries, I head out again for a ramble, to wander and explore and take a few photos. An ancient Celtic cross – and then, not far from there, in a copse of trees covered in vibrant green, a moss-gnarled face greets me, gazing eternally. An image of that mossy trunk and its visage stayed for many years in my father’s study, though he from County Tipperary and it my mother’s clan that had emigrated from the Isle of Islay.